not native fruit

passing through

songbird

I need to hear you sing,
Songbird.
Your note cuts through
To the other world,
Where I live inside,
The green world,
O songbird.
Your green rind sound
Pierces
My upper heart
To remind me
Of the echo of rain-storms
On the moon.
That’s how far I have to go,
To find home.
Your note travels to me
Over a great distance,
Through the loneliness
Of the missing world,
The absence of relatives,
The disappearance of kin,
Other than you
And all the green world
Which holds me,
Lovingly.
Within myself,
The modern world
Of cars, and people and houses,
Falls away
And I am on the hillside
Of bracken
All the way to Grizzly Peak.
I am isolated
In the loneliness
Of the secret half-breed.
The values of
My grandmother
Speak to me
Fluently
Within,
But these words
Cannot be heard
By outsiders.
And that’s almost everyone.
Songbird, sing your green song,
please.

paula gunn allen

I”ve just discovered – or re-discovered – the feminist author, Paula Gunn Allen, who is widely credited with inventing the field of Native American Literary Studies, but who viewed herself as a multi-diverse person, with recent ancestry of  Laguna Pueblo, Lakota Sioux, Scots and Lebanese.  Sounds like my family.  And yes, I do relate to a great deal of what she has to say.

I think it’s interesting that she approaches the Native American literary tradition (oral in its origins) from a mixed-ethnic perspective.  In so many ways, I think this makes it easier to be a bridge-builder, a peace-maker, and we still need people who can do that, even in this age of Diversity with a capital D.  Thank goodness for the blends (who acknowledge they are blends - in realtiy, we are all blends, of course).

I started with her book on Pochahontas, which may be her most recent one.  She starts off by saying that we can’t just look at the facts if we want to know Pochahontas, because for one thing, there simply aren’t that many.  Rather, “a biography of Pocahontas must tell her life in terms of the myths, the spirits, the supernaturals, and the worldview that informed her actions and character.”  (p.2)  We don’t look at her as somehow standing above others, whether in terms of achievement or in terms of victimhood, because that would separate her from the “entire life system: that community of living things, geography, climate, spirit people, and supernaturals – (because) what is (to be) emphasized is the interactive nature of that person’s life.”  (p.2) 

For me, all of this makes perfect sense, because that is most certainly how I understand my own life.  Of course, as I get older, I want to understand my life even more than before, and I do understand it more than ever.  I’m interested in Pocahontas because she is a First Contact Native American, and member of a tribe that was closely related to my own native ancestors through my mother’s paternal grandmother, and possibly maternal grandmother as well.  I’m interested in that period of contact, and especially in that part of the east-coast’s First Contact story, which differed so much from either New England’s or the territories south of Virginia.

Here is something Paula Gunn Allen wrote that I particularly like: “A life comprises all the currents that flow through it and that it flows through.  Nor is it ever finished.  A person, like life itself, has neither beginning nor end.  It just is, here and there, self and other, present and absent.  In that way, Pocahontas’s life continues on, as the books, poetry, songs, dramas, and films centering on her prove.”  (p.2)

I really feel this way about my great-grandmother who seems to have been quite a powerful person – in my eyes, her life is continuing on, and she has some kind of unusual power to let others know about herself and who she is (was).  I seem to be the chief vessel for that transmission, but some people get a direct transmission from her photo.  She was a ‘Moor Indian’ from Delaware, who lived most of her adult life in the Pennsylvania mountains and the end of her life in Philadelphia.  I’m trying to get something published about her, but if that doesn’t work, I will have a whole page available about her on-line soon.

Anyway, I’m sorry to have to report that Paula Gunn Allen, a voice for many, has passed on from this plane of existence – last year, in May of 2008 – but she certainly is a living being in my consciousness.  I hope to continue to pass on to you what are, for me, thought-provoking passages from her work, as I discover them.

vanity

Vanity is supposed to be one of the characteristics of the Fire Rabbit.  From the Judeo-Christian point of view, this sounds terrible, because Vanity is one of the (evil) passions.  Perhaps this is one of the pitfalls of mixing yr metaphors, and trying to talk about Chinese Astrology and Christian Moral Theology in the same breath.  But wait a minute!  Doesn’t vanity serve a purpose?  Is all vanity harmful to others?  In one of the Christian traditions, the problem is not so much ‘the passions’ but the excess of passion that is the problem.  In that case, an excessive display of vanity might be harmful to others and even to the person all caught up in vanity.  But a certain healthy dose of vanity can be a protection, too.  Sidney Poitier seems to feel it served that purpose in his own life, and it brought him to a better place.  He needed a little ‘vanity’ in order to keep believing in himself when times were tough.  I think we all need to trust the process a little more.  One thing can transform into something else.  It doesn’t mean that the ancient ethical wisdom found, for example, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, can’t act as a guideline, but getting all excessive about it just doesn’t do.  It seems to me that moral rectitude can turn into one of those trouble-making ‘passions’ too.

more on sidney poitier

Synchronicity at work.  I just happened to come across the Sept/Oct 2008 issue of AARP magazine featuring – guess who? – Sidney Poitier.

The artcile’s author, Marilyn Milloy, opens with a perfect portrait of Fire Rabbit and Water Tiger: “At 81, Poitier carries his tall frame as straight as a lamppost.  His eyes search in that familiar level gaze, at once inviting and forbidding.  And while he oozes grace and humility – long the stuff of his manner – he walks with the knowing caution of a man who’s nobody’s fool.”  “Despite (his) acclaim, Poitier remains a modest and persistently private man, a self-described outsider who’d much rather hold forth with a book” than be the subject of Hollywood’s celebrity-mill.

The Water Tiger says, “I’m a loner, and that is it.  I’m just simply that way.”  The Fire Pig says, “My shyness is an integral part of myself.  There is nothing I can or wish to do about it.” 

The Water Tiger says, “I didn’t run into racism until we moved to Nassau when I was ten and a half, but it was vastly different from the kind of horrendous oppression that black people in Miami were under when I moved there at 15.  I found Florida an antihuman place.”  The Fire Rabbit says, “But by the time I got there, I already had a sense of myself – I knew who I was.  And I was of value.  So when Florida said to me, ‘You are not who you think you are,’ I said, Oh, yes, I am.  I am who I think I am.  I am not who you think I am.’”

Poitier goes on to talk about how he wanted to make films that would reflect well (accurately) on his father, Reginald Poitier, a tomato farmer, and how that often meant he had to say ‘no’ to roles – or amend roles, as he did when he insisted that his character, Det. Virgil Tibbs, return Rod Steiger’s character’s slap in “In The Heat of the Night” in 1967.  (By the way, I remember we were electrified by that slap!  We thought, “Wow, this is great, things are changing!  There is going to be greater equality at last!”  My grandfather was considered to be 'colored' back in his day, so I guess that's why we cared about that so much.)

I loved this: the interviewer asked him if he felt he had gotten the last laugh, when it came to his former critics, and he answered, “Last laugh?  I don’t go there.”

Yes!

I also must say I appreciate the courage in this statement: “I have (no regrets).  I have behaved in despicable ways, and I recall them.  I don’t regret them.  That came out of an understanding that I arrived at much, much later in my life – that there is not one choice I made, not one, that I would change.  Because then my life would have led to somewhere else.”

Speaking about his books and memoirs, this was also something I related to, coming as I do from two sides of a family for whom literacy was not really a central fact of life – with the exception of one of my American great-grandparents and possibly also for the landowning great-grandparent on my Danish side, who was not a nice person, by the way: “Unfortunately, I came from a culture in which nothing was written down, and I had to depend on whatever the oral history was.  A comment here, a comment there.  I don’t think we tell our stories enough, and I think that it is absolutely essential that we do.  When we die, we are going to be taking with us to the grave an enormous amount of information, experience, points of view, positions, attitudes.  We should leave some of those parts of ourselves behind.”

Ultimately, they discussed the future of the planet, and Sidney said, “So what we do about all this depends on how we manage as a family – and I mean the 6.7 billion of us on this planet.”

Thank you, Sidney, I love you too, and feel that we are kinfolks too.

spring

 

sidney poitier fire rabbit

I've decided to post some of my 12 Animals posts on this site, because I think they make for interesting reading and they're not being seen enough on the other site.  We are in Fire Rabbit month right now - it began on March 5th - so I'm looking at a Fire Rabbit to get a sense of that personality.  Of course, everyone has four Animals, not just one, but I think in Sidney Poitier's life, the Fire Rabbit nature is very strong.

 Born on February 20, 1927, estimated time of birth 9:00 pm, Sidney Poitier is a FIRE RABBIT, with a Water Tiger month, Wood Rooster Day and probable Fire Pig Hour.  Fire Rabbit and Fire Pig would make him able to assert himself, and along with Wood Rabbit, grants him loquaciousness, excellent physical presence and carriage, and according to his Zi Wei chart, his ace in the hole is his Manner and Bearing house with both Granary in its Pleasure position and Elegance in Temple in Rabbit sign. In his spiritual autobiography, The Measure of a Man, Poitier writes that he is highly motivated in everything he does by his sense of of his ancestors, and they would be represented by this house and by his Fire Rabbit pillar.

His strongest Elements are Wood (his day-stem and chief celestial influence), and Fire, his element of self-expression and creativity.  Optimism and benevolence - Wood virtues - are hallmarks of Sidney's character, along with good-humor and the inspirational kind of spirituality associated with Fire.  He has a very strong mother-child connection in terms of Element-balance, and his autobiography bears this out.

As a child on Cat Island in the Bahamas, Sidney lived a simple life unencumbered by electricity, telephones, television or motorized vehicles.  Early on, at age 7, his Tiger derring-do took the form of challenging himself to walk through a covered, diked salt-water inlet from the sea with the intention of opening the dike form the inside, a move that would have swept him to his death if he had been able to accomplish it.  In his spiritual autobiography, The Measure of a Man, Sidney refers to his Tiger-penchant for risk-taking as his 'dark side' and in typical Tiger-fashion, he has tested his limits and the limits of his circumstances over and over during his lifetime.  The books all say that Tigers are cautious, and that is true, but only because they are very much aware of risks, because they will have often plunged into life head-first in order to learn more about them.  Theirs is the School of Experience, with all its hard-knocks.

The main lessons learned on Cat Island, according to Sidney's own account, had to do with developing 'emotional intelligence' and a solid grounding in the instinctual life of nature.  Both of these are Rabbit strengths, and also specific to Water Tiger. Theodora Lau writes, "Water Tiger is humane, an excellent judge of truth, and emotionally perceptive about the feelings of others.  His intuition and ability to communicate make him an excellent canditate for public relations or other media work." (p.66, The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes)  Sidney Poitier also enjoys the Good Partner combination of same element Animals, Tiger and Rabbit (both Wood Animals by nature), and these people usually have excellent emotional intelligence, which makes it possible for them to form and sustain good relationships with partners.

Sidney saw his mother as a very special person, and a look at her photo in the book reveals a woman of great spiritual 'mana' or as the Hindus call it 'Sree' - a spiritual energy that shows particularly in the face as a brightness or light.  Sidney credits his mother with granting him a portion of what she had, helping him in his career and personal life as well.  She is represented as the Tiger in his Four Pillars, and so we know that, simple woman though she was, she was very strong, idealistic and spiritually powerful.

At age 11, the family moved to Nassau, and Sidney had his first experience of city life, with its colonial-style racism and classism. He encountered it in an even harsher form at age fifteen when he joined his older brother in Miami. However, he did not see himself through a racist or classist lens, and this gave him great personal freedom and optimism about himself and his future.  He writes, "Vanity, which the dictionary says is an excess of pride, was the only way I could brace myself against the onslaught of the culture's merciless indictment of me.  With no other means at my disposal to fight off society's intent to restrict my range of motion, to smother and suffocate me, excess was engaged to speak on my behalf.  I was saying, 'Okay, listen, you think I'm so inconsequential?  Then try this on for size.  All those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given therby to denying me value - to you I say, 'I'm not talking about being as good as you.  I hereby declare myself better than you.'  Later, I would carry that theme, detached from questions of color and race, all the way into the theater world, where it would become a personal standard, applicable to creative excellence and professional competitiveness.  I couldn't deal with waiting for society to someday have a change of heart or say, 'I'm gonna be as good, one day, as you are.'  My heart said, 'I am already as good.  In fact, I'm starting out with better material, and I am going to be better.'  How do you like them apples?" (42-43) 

Spoken like a true Fire Rabbit, an Animal who is talented, comfortable with notoriety, and expresses his own vanity freely.  In his book, Sidney talks about his vanity as a defense, but it seems clear from his prose that this trait has supported him well throughout his life. 

All four of his Birth Animals grant him an optimistic, positive outlook, and plenty of healthy self-esteem.  In the book, he mentions how, for the dominant culture in both Nassau and Miami, these qualities were completely unexpected in a black youth.  Even after his major Hollywood successes, a lot of people, both black and white, seemed to think Sidney Poitier was too good to be true, but he really does view himself as an exemplar of the moral values of his ancestors, sees no substantive difference between white and black people except for the artificial divisions imposed by colonial societies, and possesses an extremely positive, idealistic attitude towards life.

Sidney Poitier chose to play characters on stage and in film that reflected 'who he was,' unbelievable though he may have seemed, representing as he did a black man with a positive self-image not limited by racial stereotypes. His filmography includes: No Way Out (with Richard Widmark), The Defiant Ones (with Tony Curtis), Lillies of the Field (with Lilia Skala), A Patch of Blue, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (with Spencer Tracy and Kathryn Hepburn), To Sir With Love, and In The Heat of the Night (with Rod Steiger).

philadelphia rowhouses, the irish and the savings and loan

i'm reading a great little book called 'The Irish in Philadelphia,' by Dennis Clark, loaned to me by a friend who is a fellow-Philadelphian ex-pat living in Berkeley, California.  Of course, there were loads of Irish-Americans in my life growing up in Philadelphia. My mother's mother was supposed to be part-irish, but I wonder now how much of it was Irish by marriage.  Her grandmother's sister definitely married an Irishman, so perhaps that was the connection.  Or maybe, just because they'd lived up in the mountains for so long, they'd lost some of their connection to the Irish, and didn't feel quite in the same league with the more recent Irish immigrants we lived around in Philadelphia.  I don't know, but our own Irish heritage seemed to be under-emphasized, even though so many of the people around us - including one of my mother's best friends - were Irish.

Perhaps the neatest thing about this book for me is that I am learning more about the working-class people of Philadelphia.  For example, there is a whole section on the row-house.  Philadelphia was and is a veritable warren of row-houses.  The kids who lived in them used to make fun of them, but the truth is they did provide affordable housing for working-class people.  Instead of being always in the power of the landlord, something the Irish in particular despised, the Irish working poor - and other working class people too - in Philadelphia could experience pride-of-ownership.  I feel certain it did endow all of us with a certain self-esteem we might not otherwise have had.  True, these little, somewhat windowless dwellings crowded up against one another may have all looked alike on the outside, but inside each one was unique.  I think it was a wonderful alternative to tenement buildings and apartment-living, especially for families.  It makes me feel proud of Philadelphia to realize how unique our housing situation was for working-class people.

"Laborers in Newburyport, Massachusetts, were paying between $60 and $100 a year in rent in 1850.  This surpasses the average Philadelphia rent of $53-$68.  Rentals in the Fort Hill area in Boston (were) $1.50 per room per week, and (there were) equally exorbitant rents for attics and cellars.  While unskilled immigrants to Philadelphia no doubt faced similar gouging, the fact that the city was able to expand its housing supply and make more working-class houses available was some relief.  Rental housing simply was not as large a portion of the Philadelphia housing market as it was in Boston and New York.  As early is 1851 Patrick McKeown was writing home to his sisters in Ireland that 'almost every family has a house to themselves let it be large or small and a great many working people own the houses they live in."  The opportunity for a workingman to obtain a home of his own was really there.  Whereas a two-story house in Ireland was a mark of notable affluence, in Philadelphia such a structure could be had by a thrifty workingman.  An examination of bequests of Philadelphia Irishmen of the 1850's indeicates that it was not uncommon for members of the city's Irish community to own houses and real property.  True, some of the property was in slum areas, but some was in other areas as well." p. 54

The book makes many unfavorable comparisons between Boston's Irish poor and Philadelphia's.  Even New York City's economics do not compare favorably with Philadelphia's when it came to the Irish working-class. 

Another key to the success of the working Irish in Philadelphia was the building and loan associations, sometimes called Savings & Loan - our family banked at the local Savings and Loan until I moved my parents out to join us in Berkeley - which were "a sort of people's bank.  Sincle it was difficult for ordinary working people without collateral to obtain credit, groups of them began to develop their own credit systems.  Each person deposited a small sum, usually weekly, until enough equity was established to warrant an extension of credit.  If a man could pay the nominal ground rent on a lot, he could after a time borrow perhaps $1,400 from his local building and loan association, have a house built, and repay the loan over a period of years.  This original mortgage system in the city grew spontaneously and extensively.  The first such associations were begun in the late 1840's, and by 1875 there were 600 disbursing a half-million dollars a month.  The depositors were the only stockholders.  The overhead was low, since usually only the secretary of the association drew a salary.  These building associations became one of the vehicles for improvement for Irish families intent upon achieving better housing and a modest respectability.  With some of that dogged thrift that could often be found among the extraordinarily penurious Irish cottiers in the old country, the Philadelphia Irish took to the building and loan associations." pp 56-57

I remember my mother had no time for banks and only wanted to deal with the savings and loan associations in Philadelphia.  I got the impression that banks were kinda 'the enemy' and the savings and loan was your friend.  Knowing what I now know about my family, it makes sense that, for my family, banks existed for 'another class' of people.  Maybe those people were 'better' but we were quite all right too.

panchakarma

i just finished my annual panchakarma cleanse. Panchakarma means 'five cleansing actions.'  it's a rejuvenating and healing process from the ayurvedic tradition of Inida, involving diet, herbs, purgatives, sweating, lymphatic-style massage, sinus cleansing, and more, administered over a time span of about a month.   i've lost ten pounds or more, plus i've lost toxins galore.  I feel great!  Let me tell you, it isn't exactly easy to do, but with persistence it gets easier every time, and has helped me to make some necessary changes in my regulator diet and lifestyle.  my practitioner has a fantastic line of products - without exaggeration the best herbal products I have ever used - Sarada's Ayurvedic Remedies.  Here is her website.

Just before I began the cleanse, I had the flu, so it's been about a month of being caught up in the process of working with my physical health.  I've been making daoist perfumes to handle the spiritual side of things.  They are also very effective, not to mention extremely pleasant.  I learned this technique from my daoist medicine teacher, Jeffrey Yuen, of the Jade Purity School. 

Pica, Lori, Carrie, Peter, Dave, Yemi, Dick, Beth and other supporters of my site, if you think you'd like a personalized daoist perfume (for free of course) please email me.